14 DAY TRIAL // While AMD's mobile processors haven't managed to become the success story the company hoped they will back in 2010 when it launched the new Vision branding, AMD has kept releasing new chips into the market and the 3.2GHz Phenom II X640 is the fastest such CPU to be available yet.
The chip is based on the Champlain core and it packs two processing cores built on the same architecture as that employed for the desktop Athlon II X2 processors.
This means that the Phenom II X640 processor features 1MB of Level 2 cache for each of its cores, while the L3 cache characteristic to Phenom II CPUs has been left out of the equation in order to lower the power consumption of the chip.
In addition to this change, the Champlain core also features an enhanced version of the CoolCore technology and a new C5 power state, all designed to make the chip more energy-efficient.
As a result, AMD has managed to fit the Phenom X640 into an 45W power envelope, just as the energy-efficient Athlon II X2 desktop processors, even though the mobile CPU features a higher clock speed.
The rest of the CPU features are identical to those of the previous X620 model as the processor includes one 1.8 GHz HT link, and a dual-channel DDR3-1333 memory controller.
Sine the Phenom II X640 is AMD fastest mobile processor to date, this is one of a few Danube CPUs, that managed to receive the company's top-tier Vision Black branding.
This also means that the Phenom II X640 comes with a factory unlocked multiplier, which should increase the overclocking performance of the chip.
The only problem is that not so many laptop designs come with overclocking support, which defeats the purpose of having an unlocked multiplier.
Until now, no company has announced notebook models based on the Phenom II X640 and given how close we are to the Llano launch, I don't expect such press releases to come our way. (via CPU-World)